BBC - Radio 3 - Awards for World Music 2005

ENZO AVITABILE & BOTTARI (ITALY)

Full track details

You can bet your last sestercii that noone expected anything like Enzo Avitabile and his bottari to be one of the global music hits of 2004. The coupling of a mad-professorial saxophonist from Naples, who looks every bit like Italy's answer to Jerry Garcia, with a bunch of goodfellas beating out unholy grooves on barrels and tubs certainly wasn't on the agenda twelve months ago. But the southern Italian region of Campania, with its fecund mix of deeply superstitious rural traditions and well nigh bacchanalian calendar of Catholic fiestas and saints days, keeps throwing up surprises. All it takes is the genius of musical mavericks like Daniele Sepe, Spaccanapoli and now Enzo Avitabile to plumb this rich source before wonders begin to flow.

Avitabile began his career in the GI jazz bars of Naples, soaking up American jazz, blues and rock, whilst cultivating a remarkably open ear and an enticing sax technique. A diploma in music from the Conservatory of San Pietro a Maiella lead to a burgeoning career as a session musician and solo artist. After a dozen highly acclaimed solo albums and stints with artists like Tina Turner, James Brown and Afrika Bambaata, Avitabile was ready for something completely different.

For the past four years or more he has been researching, resurrecting and mutating the ancient tradition of the bottari, or 'barrel beaters', which lives on in the ramshackle Campanian village of Portico di Caserta, about thirty miles north of Naples. Back in the middle ages young men used to beat on barrels, kegs and tubs with sticks and sickles to drive demons out of their cellars and fields. As so often happens, this very practical exercise turned into a ritual and eventually into a distinct musical culture, with entire villages turning out to chase the spirits, lead by a beat master or capopattuglia.

Today in Portico, on the feast of San Antonio Abate, ox-drawn wagons shaped like boats carry the barrel beating 'Pattuglia Patrol' through the streets in a kind of sanctified bacchanal that is unmistakibly Mediterranean. Avitabile has harnessed the heartbeat of this tradition and set it on a new course, spiced with jazz and global inflections. It's a hypnotic collaboration that has been preserved to perfection on his latest CD "Save The World" on Wrasse Records.

Ivan Chrysler (courtesy of fRoots)

Full concert audio from WOMAD 2004
Enzo Avitabile at Wrasse Records

Your Comments

España!!
Esto es increible!!Tinen que escucharlo!!

Anne-Marie - Dublin, Ireland
Just saw Enzo & Bottari live at the Festival of World Cultures in South County Dublin and it was fantastic. Bottari is very hypnotic and energising. A must for all you tired out pop music fans.

Mike, Woodbridge (Canada)
It's a classic! A must have! Buy it!

katchka,ostrawa,cz
perfect, we love u guys,u are unique and amazing and "colours of ostrawa" will never forget u...thanx for great music and not bad view,italians are really sexy.. u look wonderful together..

claudio - leno bs italy
enzo avitabile: the genius part second

Jonie - UK
6 unico enzuccio! - this is great stuff... naples lives again...

Riccardo
please don't miss Enzo's live performances; the most original and energizing mix of last years!!!

eu - italy
i love you forever, enzo tvb, gualiò

soul sister 87 - italy
reclusive musician, the very extraordinary

esedra - caserta
superstar

franca from Potenza
it's fantastic!

effegi - caserta
wonderful, fantastic, extraordinary, reclusive, unique...

Oren from Israel
Enzo - You are a genius !!! Thank-you, I cannot stop listening to the gig on the BBC's hompage.

Giulia - Rome
Enzo Avitabile and his young "bottari" are the sun, the energy and the true spirit of southern italy. Please, vote for him and if you come in italy go to his concert...enzo's live performance and groove are overwhelming!

cuonino
bottari ours the best

Dan -Caserta-

I listened to a couple of their concerts and the only thing I feel to say is : wonderful..... Ciao Ragazzi e Forza Gemello.

Rob Weisberg, Hoboken New Jersey USA
Hi - Another note from across the Atlantic: This is a fun track and overall a great project both musically and conceptually. We don't see enough (any!) evidence of the remarkable Southern Italian (and Italian in general) hybrid roots-music phenomenon over here in the Northeastern US. Our abundant Italian street festivals here would be an interesting venue for this, and arguably could use some shaking up. (Any grant-writers out there?) Most representations of Italian musical culture in these festivals or feasts are rather stylized - generally the old standards done in cheesy American wedding band style. Not that this can't be fun, but it would be great to introduce North Americans to the idea of living tradition in Italy, and show how musicians are re-invigorating tradition through creative adaptation. And given the Bottari's participation in the feast in Portico, it would seem a perfect match. Perhaps musicians with an interest in Italy / Italian or Italian-American culture would even be inspired to try similar experiments, as they have with other musics that reflect broader cultural influences in New York: For example Yiddish, Balkan and of course Latin music. Now we're getting dreamy... Disclaimer: I'm a radio dj (WFMU) and writing a short appreciate article about Enzo and the Bottari (Global Rhythm), so naturally I'm an advocate...

Giorgio De Stefano, NYC
I appreciate Ivan Chrysler's informed and appreciative review of Avitabile. But I could do without his referring to the bottari percussionists as "goodfellas." Why the need for a mafia allusion? This is insulting to Avitabile, a well-known leftist, and to the culture he represents. And as Napoli currently is suffering from the horrors of a camorra war, the reference is in very poor taste. I wish that when writing about southern Italian culture -- my culture!-- critics would resist the temptation to make organized crime references where they are not called for.

Richard Dorrell
a; unnervingly funky b; in the wake of Berlusconi's degradation of the Italian media, this is brilliant c; Enzo looks gorgeous too...

Carlton - London
We went to his concert at the Barbican recently - absolutely amazing. Can't wait to see them again. Most original & quite hypnotic. Why on earth did BBC Radio 3 only broadcast the second half of the evening (Rachid Taha). Avitabile was by far the better performer.